Hidden Treasures
by Tuesday101
Summary: Post season 3, Bellamy and Clarke discover the Grounder's stash of liquor


"You are drunk!"

Clark laughed, the liquor in the bottle sloshing over her hand as she swayed it in the air. "I am no such thing," She slurred, the words barely distinguishable through her intoxicated speech. It was a big lie. She was drunk; very drunk and Bellamy knew it

Bellamy wasn't sure how she had gotten so intoxicated, it just happened. Monty had pulled out an old bottle of wine to pass around and one thing lead to another and now it was only him and Clarke, each nursing their 5th or 6th drink. He had stopped keeping count.

"That's a lie," Bellamy bellowed. His voice speech got louder with each drink. Clarke was sure the whole Tower could he him calling her out on her lie, but she didn't care. Why should she? "Look at you, you're basically falling over."

It was true. Despite the fact she was sitting on the ground her body weight awkwardly tipped to the left side. She placed her bottle on the floor and leaned on it for support. "Am not, I'm perfectly sober." Her laugh echoed in the empty room. Bellamy's chuckled followed until both of them were nearly rolling on the floor.

"This empty room gives me the creeps," Bellamy sighed, his last laugh fading into an echo. Clarke looked around, making sure to keep then liquor bottle close to her lest it slip. The barren room was pretty creepy. Besides a broken chair and locked chest they were all alone. There was a window but the amount of dust it was caked in rendered it useless and efficient at keeping the room dark, or maybe that was due to the late hour.

"It's not empty," Clarke mused. "It's just blank, like a canvas."

Bellamy raised an eyebrow. "A canvas," he muttered cradling the liquor to his chest like Clarke. His eyes suddenly opened wide and he grinned, pearly whites sparkling. "It's a blank canvas, Clarke!"

She stared back. "That is what I just said… I think."

Bellamy shook his head while holding out the bottle so it moved in sync with his floppy hair. "No, you see," he stood up. "This, all of this," Bellamy raised his hands and gestured around the room, "is a clean slate." He started spinning in the centre of the room, kicking up dust everywhere he stepped. Bellamy stared in awe at every inch of the room as if he had never seen anything quite so incredible. Liquor sloshed onto the floor as he spin back to Clarke, the hand holding the bottle out stretched in her direction. She stared up at him. "We could redo this room Clarke."

She tried to raise an eyebrow but just ended up looking constipated. "Do you have a secret hobby of interior decorating," she giggled taking a long swig of her drink. He glared back.

"I'm serious Clarke," he grumbled mirroring Clarke's actions with the liquor.

"Aren't you always."

Bellamy slammed the bottle on the floor and Clarke scooted back on the floor, holding her own bottle tight to her chest. "Think about."

"I'm trying," Clarke mused. "But my brain seems to be a bit foggy at the moment."

He sighed and flopped on the floor next to his liquor and stared at the locked chest. "Well we need to start somewhere and I purpose that that spot be there," he pointed to the chest then took a big swig.

Clarke sighed loudly and flopped onto her back starfish style. She started humming something about a 'locked chest full of secrets.' Bellamy started chuckling and stared at Clarke as she sung. Her humming filled the room, echoing off the walls and bouncing off the floorboards.

"We could just break it open," Bellamy mumbled, the liquor bottle obscuring his words. Clarke shoot off the floor. More alcohol spilled onto the floor.

"We could break it open!" Bellamy chuckled at her excitement, chugging the last of his bottle. "Why didn't we think of this sooner?" Clarke smiled from ear to ear and started climbing up from the floor but her intoxicated state made the task much more difficult than usual. She stumbled over to the chest and stared at the bulging lock long since rusted over.

Bellamy crept behind her and stood at her side staring at the lock too. "How do we break it open," she whispered not quietly at all.

Bellamy continued to stare with Clarke until his eye grew to the size of watermelons. He disappeared for a moment then quickly returned with the empty liquor bottle. Before Clarke's brain could properly process what was going on the bottle was smashed, shards of glass littering the floor.

"Did you think that would work," Clarke said astonished.

"Yeah," Bellamy grumbled.

"Well you didn't throw it hard enough!" Bellamy raised an eyebrow, something that seemed miraculous in his drunken state. Clarke turned her attention to her liquor bottle still half full on the floor in the middle of the room and so did Bellamy. "Don't even think about it!" Clarke ran over and picked up the bottle as if she was protecting an innocent puppy. "It's the last one."

"Fine," Bellamy sighed. His gaze fixed back on the lock. "Well got any other ideas?"

Clarke took a drink. "Have you tried the key," Clarke asked absentmindedly.

Bellamy huffed. Even in his past tipsy state he was smart enough to know the Grounders wouldn't just leave a key lying around for a locked chest. Clarke on the other hand seemed to have lost the concept of national thinking. And maturity as she was now sprawled on the floor trying to make 'snowmen' from the dust. "I haven't tried the key due to the fact there is no key." His slurred words made it hard for him to sound smart.

Clarke sat up and stared, dust bunnies clinging to her hair. "There is a key. There's always a key."

"That's deep." Clarke smiled. "But do you know where said key is?"

Her smile flopped. She looked as if Bellamy had just handed her the problem to life on a silver plate. "Nooooo," She trailed off. Clarke laced a finger through her hair then shot up as if the floor was lava. "But I have a pin!"

Bellamy squinted at the small piece of black metal dangling between Clarke's fingernails. He then pieced together what she was inferring with the pin. "You want to pick the lock," He asked, half astounded her drunk brain was capable of coming up with such a plan.

"Is not that hard, Jasper showed me a while ago." She took cautious steps over to the chest as if it was going to break open. Armed with the pin in hand she bent down and started twisting the black metal into the lock.

Bellamy leaned over to watch, his chain nearly grazing her shoulder; her shoulder, which due to an oversized shirt, was exposed. "What did Jasper do with the knowledge of lock picking," He whispered not wanting to disturb her work.

He was shot a curious glance before Clarke answered, while clumsily working on the lock, "He had a hobby of steal things."

"Ah yes. Alcohol if I recall correctly."

"Whisk to be exact."

The lock popped open unexpectedly and Clarke jumped back pushing Bellamy to the floor. Bellamy overdramatically rubbed his now sore elbow while Clarke excitedly yanked at the lock. It took her a few tries to figure out how to actual get the thing off, but when she did she threw it across the room to be forever lost in a pile of dust and dirt.

"Wait," She whispered, hands set ready to lift open the top of the chest. "What do you thinks' in here?"

"A sling for my broken arm," Bellamy grumbled

"Baby. C'mon there could be anything in here. Gold, silver, a treasure map!" She crawled over to Bellamy and leaned over him, grabbing at his shirt collar and pulling their faces close. "You have to promise me that if there's a treasure map in there you'll join me in my treasure hunting journey."

He nodded, getting slightly scared of drunken Clarke's ambitions.

"Good." She crawled back to the chest and lifted it open without another thought. It was not Gold, or Silver, or even a treasure map. "Well that's disappointing," Clarke sighed slumping over like a kid disappointed at Christmas.

Bellamy pulled himself off the floor, ignoring Clarke's snarky comment about his 'broken arm.' He peered inside while Clarke watched curiously to see what he would do. "Well I did expect more."

Clarke raised an eyebrow, or at least tried to. Bellamy raised one back then started digging through the chest. He pulled out a collection of envelopes, each worn and water damaged. "How old do you think these are," He asked. Admittedly he was slightly upset about not finding any kind of treasure, but who knows what in those envelopes.

"Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions years old," Clarke laughed from her spot on the floor then started searching for the liquor bottle again.

Bellamy, whose buzz was starting to wear off, found himself more interested in the contents of the chest. He sat down next to the chest and started opening the first pale coloured envelope. Its corners with ripped and the sealed had been broken multiple times over but he took care not to further damage it.

"Clarke, you should come look at this."

Encapsulated within the envelope was a collection of pictures, small in size with a thick white border around each and handwriting underneath each one. Bellamy had only seen a handful of photographs in this life. It was a rare sight to come by on Ark. No one thought to bring a camera to space. But he had never seen photographs like this.

Clarke adjusted her balance with the weight of the bottle now in her hand and crawled back over to Bellamy to sit beside him. Each had their backs pressed against the chest.

"What are they," Bellamy asked, very doubtful that Clarke could come up with logical answer in her mental state. He expected an answer along the lines of 'it's obviously a fluffy unicorn,' but was surprised with her response.

"Polaroid's." She took a swig from the bottle and passed it to him. He took a small sip. "They were used a long time ago as a method of photographing."

Bellamy stared at the pictures and decided Clarke might be right. The people in the pictures weren't wearing any clothes that Bellamy was familiar with, not that he had a great education on Earth's history. He passed some to Clarke so she could look through them.

A group of friends sitting on a railing; two girls ridding down a street on bikes; an old man with his feet propped up smiling at the camera; a girl and a guy sitting against a wall holding melting ice cream cones; someone caught dancing; two boys kissing…

"What are you doing?"

Clarke peered up at Bellamy through her hair and smiled shyly. She had separated a few pictures from the rest. One pile sat at her knee and the rest were spread out in front of her. Among those spread in front of her was a picture of a girl wrapped in a string of lights, a skyline, a shimmering lake, a field of flowers, and a tall building that came to a point that Bellamy could identify as the Eiffel Tower which once stood in Paris. "I'm picking out my favourites. I like this one too."

She pulled out another photo from under her knee, the one opposite to Bellamy's. It was a photograph of a guy and a girl kissing in the front of a car. Bellamy looked away awkwardly. He didn't understand what kind of message Clarke was sending, if she was sending one, by specifically showing him that one but he didn't want to think that way; especially when she wasn't thinking straight. He picked out another envelope and opened that one slowly. This one too contained photographs, but not in the 'Polaroid' style. These were like the ones Bellamy had seen. They were printed on thick paper with a shinny top layer and about a hand width or bigger in size. A picture of a person, portrait style, was printed on each paper with an added on tag that showed their name.

"Who are they," Clarke asked as if Bellamy had all the answers, but he did have an idea. The people were photographed in spacesuits, a helmet propped under their elbow.

"I think they were the original members of the Ark." Clarke gazed up at him then back at the pictures coming to the conclusion that he was correct.

"These two have the same last name." She pulled at a picture of a young man and one of a young woman, both pictures labeled with the last name Young.

"Siblings?"

"Married?" Bellamy felt strangely uncomfortable again.

"Why would Grounders have these locked away in a trunk?"

"Why do Grounders do anything," Clarke wondered still staring at the matching names. "Burn down a village, send children to the front lines, indorse terrible tasting alcohol." She took a drink. "Thou it does get the job done."

Bellamy decided then that he needed to get a little drunker if Clarke was going to bring up those topics. He pulled the bottle from her hand and took a long drink. When he swallowed that one he took another for good measure. During his quick drink break Clarke had discovered another envelope, this one in much better condition than the rest. She was digging through the folder; her hair falling down around her so Bellamy couldn't see what was in the envelope.

"What is it," he asked, discarding the photos in a somewhat neat pile.

Clarke's eyes sparkled when she looked up and Bellamy wasn't sure if he should be alarmed or excited. "Love letters," she whispered with anticipation. Bellamy quickly took another sip.

"Love letters?"

"That is what I said," Clarke giggled while rummaging through the worn folder. She pulled out a pile of thick cards and folded papers. Some had pictures of scenery on side and handwriting on the other. Bellamy plucked one with an image of mountains and a sparkling lake from Clarke's pile. He stared at the picture before flipping over the thick paper. The other side was covered in thin squished handwriting.

" _You are my everything_." Bellamy sputtered, too alarmed to keep a hold of the letter. " _You make me_ _want to be a better me_."

She glanced up from the letter in her hand and Bellamy sighed when he realized she was quoting the handwriting. He wasn't sure if it was a sigh of relief or not. Clarke was too busy giggling and reading over the 'love letters' to notice Bellamy's uncomfortable state. "Why would the Grounders keep these?"

"Maybe they need a lil," Clarke leaned in close, "love in their life." She whispered the last words and Bellamy could feel her breathe dancing across the bare skin of his neck. He was stunned.

"Maybe," he stuttered back. "But they don't like these have been opened in a while."

Clarke blinked. Her impossibly long lashes making her look ethereal. She leaned in closer so their breath mingled in the small space between them. Bellamy tensed, unsure if he should move backwards or stay put. Her eyelashes fluttered as she looked down at the letter in her lap.

" _There is some much I haven't gotten the chance to say_ ," she spoke softly. " _And I wish to say it now. I hope you are happy, everywhere you and with whatever you are doing. I hope you are with someone that makes you happy even if that person isn't me. But never forget how much you meant to me_."

"Clarke what are you -."

" _You have changed me for the better and I will forever thank you,"_ Clarke paused her drunken rambles and stared at Bellamy. Her head tipped upwards and for a moment Bellamy panicked before her lips touched his. He wanted so badly to push her away, not that he didn't want this, but not like this. The only thing stopping him was how nice it felt. Despite her dirty clothes and greasy hair she smelled incredible and her lips were so gentle on his.

Clarke pulled away first, gently touching their foreheads together. Bellamy hadn't realized that she had placed her hands on his shoulders, or that he had placed his hands on her back.

"Hi," she mumbled while giggling.

"What are you doing, Clarke," he mumbled barely raising his voice above a whisper.

The liquor burned in her breath as she replied. "I don't know."

He stared at her, and she stared back. He couldn't wrap his tipsy mind around that fact that she was here, practically sitting his lap, kissing him. Hours he'd spent imagining scenarios, in which something like this would happen, but never did he imagine it would turn like this; both of them drunk on a dusty floor looking through old artifacts.

She leaned in again and Bellamy decided to push away the rational part of his brain that kept telling him to stop.


End file.
